If you don’t drink alcohol or gamble or run up large balances on your credit cards, you may think the term “addiction” has no place in your life … but you are probably wrong. Whether we know it or not, most of us have relationships that are what I call “addictionships,” a term I have coined to describe relationships that don’t work well because they are built on erroneous beliefs about ourselves.

When it comes to relationships, the best predictor of the future is the past – and that doesn’t only relate to the person in your life whose habits may be “driving you crazy,” it’s also relates to you. Though you may not be completely unaware of it, your past influences your future in ways that are both helpful and destructive. Understanding how this happens helps you navigate through your daily life and becomes a tool you can use to shape your future to your advantage.

There are many ways to look at how this plays out, so this is a topic we will return to again and again – but let’s start with examining how it happens that a particular incident can have an impact throughout life. Self-awareness begins early in childhood but it develops slowly and over time. Experiences that we have early on may be confusing and painful in ways that a young child doesn’t quite understand. If Mom disappears for a period of a few weeks or gets slapped across the face by Dad, a small child doesn’t have the tools to evaluate exactly why and what’s going on. In an attempt to make sense of what happened, a child makes assumptions that may be entirely wrong. 

Over the course of childhood, those assumptions (and there are many) get built into a framework of beliefs we hold as the “truth” and that we use to make everyday decisions. These beliefs or truths are like computer software that analyzes information and makes decisions based on programmed rules. But as we all know, computer software can be embedded with errors that cause huge problems. Similarly the human mind is full of learned errors about how people act toward us and why … and uncovering and correcting them is a necessary step in living a more mindful and truthful life leading to greater happiness. 

Understanding how your old beliefs and conditioned fears shape your behavior is the first step toward figuring out why you repeat certain patterns – perhaps falling in love with men who make you feel “stupid” or “who won’t make a commitment.” Identifying the so-called “truths” that you’ve been using to guide your life (“I’m not very smart” or “people disappear unexpectedly”) allows you to choose between the ones that serve you well and the ones that don’t. You can pull yourself out of “addictionships” that are based on unhealthy beliefs, and start having real “relationships” that make life better and richer.